


Shadows on the Land

by Sineala



Series: Children of the Sun [2]
Category: The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Backstory, Drama, M/M, Slavery, Soul Bond, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-24
Updated: 2012-11-24
Packaged: 2017-11-19 10:44:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/572408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Esca, son of Cunoval, has known from childhood how his life will be. When he first feels the soulbond in his mind, he will be made a man of the Brigantes. He will be inked. He will become a warrior. In a few years, his soulmate will come in search of him from a neighboring clan. His soulmate will be proud of him, proud that Esca is heir to a clan chieftain, proud that Esca will one day be lord of five hundred spears. They will marry. They will lead the clan together. It will be a good life. </p>
<p>Then Esca discovers his soulmate is a Roman soldier. This is, shall we say, problematic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadows on the Land

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in the same universe as [Children of the Sun](http://archiveofourown.org/works/461052), running in parallel to the story there; essentially, it's the same ten-year timespan from Esca's POV. As such, it would probably help to read the first one first. 
> 
> Things this story contains: There is a fair amount of off-page character death (Esca's family). There's also a fair amount of violence done to Esca when he is a slave, although I would say that it's not more graphic than anything in canon. There are some suicidal thoughts. He is sexually harassed by one of his owners; no non-consensual sex occurs, but it's mentioned to have happened to others. Also it is implied that characters under 18 (who are, FWIW, adults in their culture) are engaging in some kind of sexual activity.
> 
> ...I promise it has a happy ending?
> 
> Anyway. Have some soulbonds!

The soulbond came upon Esca after he had climbed down from the tree, and the gods were to be praised for that, for any sooner and he would have fallen. As it was he ended up on his back, his head tilted up against the tree's roots, smiling and smiling, while everything in his mind shifted and opened, red and yellow and golden behind his eyes, like fire, like the spring fires where all was made new again. 

Last year Esca had asked his mother how he would know when it was his soulbond; she had said he would know, as sure as anything, and there was no point in him asking the question, since it felt like nothing else in this life. He had not been satisfied with the answer -- for he had been fourteen and impatient to be a man, satisfied with nothing -- but she would not tell him any more. The next day he had been playing at fighting Romans with Liros, who had hit him in the head with a wooden sword so hard he'd seen stars, and he had wondered if that was how the bond felt.

He wanted to laugh now at how wrong he had been. He could feel it, he could feel it happening, the gods' hands reaching out across the land, one hand on him, and the other hand stretching forth--

All at once, there was someone else in his mind, and the other's thoughts were bright with joy. There were no words, of course, for that was not the way of the bond, but Esca knew the other man -- and he was a man, Esca was certain of that -- was just as happy, feeling all the wonder and amazement and reflecting it back upon him like the sun on clear waters, fierce and radiant.

_I am here_ , he thought, just as fiercely, _I am here and now I shall never leave you_. And he knew his soulmate felt the sense of the words, because there was a great swell of joy, overwhelming him. He could feel the other down to the marrow of his bones, so close and so far away, and the sheer feeling rose up and slammed into him--

When he awoke, he was still lying under the tree. He could feel, down the bond, the same happiness and a little grogginess; likely the same thing had happened to his soulmate. They said it was good when that happened, if it was that strong at the start. It meant the bond would be powerful when the two of them met, binding so tightly that you could feel your soulmate's very skin as if it were your own. At least, old Riya had said once that it was the best fortune, a sign of the gods' favor. It had happened to her long ago in just that way, she had said, and she had looked so happy when she spoke of it.

He realized that Samos was standing over him, staring. He did not know how long Samos had even been there.

"Father's looking for you," Esca's youngest brother said, in a sing-song voice. His words hissed; his front teeth had both come out last month, with the new ones not in yet. "Father said some of the cattle got out and you're supposed to help Sebrorix herd them. He _said_." Samos' voice abruptly lost its accusatory tone, and he scratched his head in confusion. "Why are you smiling like that? Are you drunk?"

"I'm a man now," Esca said, and he couldn't stop grinning. He didn't want to stop, but he didn't think it was possible even if he wanted to. "I've got my bond. I'm a man!"

"Oh. That's good." Samos stared at him more, his mouth open, before he finally came up with something else to say. "I think even if you're a man now you still have to bring the cattle in."

_I hope you will like my clan_ , he thought, or tried to think, down the bond, as he rose to his feet. _Mostly I hope you like cows. And horses._ He thought he felt an answering sort of laughter. His soulmate loved him. It would be wonderful. How could it be otherwise?

* * *

He was not formally made a man until autumn, of course, along with the other youths of the clan who had come into their soulbond that year. He had fasted, he had sat in the dark and heard the tales, and now was the last part: the inking. And though Esca craved it, he was afraid of it too, the long sharp bone-needle and the little dish of ink sitting next to it, on the bench by Weles. It did not hurt, the new men had always sworn, strutting about bravely with their arms scabbed blue and not yet healed. Esca knew they would never have admitted to the pain even if it had been the worst torture. He bit at his lip and could not take his eyes away from the needle.

It was his turn now. Weles motioned him closer. His ancient hands were wrinkled but still steady; he had inked Esca's father before him.

"Sa, sa, Esca," said Weles, low and soothing, the way one gentled a startled horse. "The fear is the worst of it. Come now; do you sit beside me. You are almost a man. Only this remains."

He was Cunoval's son, and he would bear it bravely. He must. He nodded tightly and stepped forward.

He did not cry out when the needle pricked his skin, and of that he was proud. And then -- he realized -- it did not hurt. It was not that there was not pain, but the pain did not hurt him. The pain happened to his body; his mind was in a strange, far-off place. It reminded him in a way of the soulbond, feeling himself present in his body and not present at the same time, and he wondered what it would be like to have the needle in him with his soulmate here; he thought he might like that. He would find that out for himself, of course. He was looking forward to it.

The tapping of the needle took forever and no time at all, and all at once Weles was sitting back and looking at his work, approvingly.

"That is done." Weles laid the needle down. "I greet you, Esca, son of Cunoval," he said, very formally, the way one man spoke to another, and held out his hand.

"I greet you, Weles, son of Segorix," returned Esca, reaching forth with his new-inked arm and clasping Weles' hand.

Afterwards, after the spears and the dancing, when all the drinking and feasting had begun in earnest, he stood in the torchlight and stared down at his arm in fascination, turning it this way and that to see the dark bands. 

Such a short while ago his arm had been bare, but everything was different now. Now all would know him to be a man, to be his father's heir. Why, when his soulmate met him, he would see it, and he would know that Esca was no worthless Regnenses pig-farmer who knelt for Rome, but a chieftain's son of the Brigantes. The other man would be proud when he saw it, certainly, proud to look upon it and know that someone like Esca should be bonded to him. And then, of course, Esca would receive the ink of his soulmate's clan, twined with the grander and more intricate designs of his own clan that were reserved for the bonded. He would receive this, just as his soulmate would receive Brigantes inking, so they would be bound in flesh as in mind. 

He smiled to picture it. He had always known his soulmate was in the south, even if he was not certain where; there had been a tug in that direction for months now. Perhaps he was of the Iceni. Esca had seen Iceni ink, its spidered pattern splayed out like pine needles, on the backs of traders. He would not mind having ink like that. But it would be well, whatever clan his soulmate belonged to. The gods would not have given a truly unsuitable man to Esca, after all.

* * *

Cunoval let him break horses to saddle and harness, after that. Esca was a man, and so he would be his father's charioteer; after the winter had come and gone he learned to drive a team, not just two abreast, but four, the wind whipping through his hair as he urged the horses onward, as he learned to balance in the huge war-chariot alone, leaving space for a spear-man behind him. He had still not come into a man's height, even at sixteen -- "short like a Roman," Liros had said once, laughing, and the black eye Esca gave him meant he had only said it the once -- but he had the strength of a man even so. He would not disappoint his clan. And so, day after day, he ran the horses over the long meadows, through the mist, through the rain, until he was faster than anyone, until his favorite team would respond to him with the barest flick of a wrist, with a single command.

He was taught the spear and the sword as well, of course; it would not do for these things to be forgotten. They were skills always needed.

He learned how to manage the bond, too, as much as a bond as strong as his could be managed, by breath and will and focus, that he might not be overwhelmed with it unless he chose. Sometimes he felt his soulmate so strongly, so powerfully, as if the man were right here beside him. He was lonely, Esca thought. There were some nights that he knew his soulmate was awake half the night, staring at the same sky Esca saw above him, a sharp sadness aching in his chest. It was a strange kind of sadness, a sort of regret and shame together, and when Esca felt that he tried to send back his love, all the comfort he could.

_I wish I could hold you_ , he thought, on one such night, and he felt his soulmate smile in return. 

Shortly thereafter, he discovered that other, much happier and more exciting feelings could pass between them, and the rest of that night was much more interesting. He did not tell Weles about it when the old man came to instruct him, but privately he thought that most people were certain to have figured it out even if they did not speak of it. It certainly made the evenings more pleasant.

And then the Romans came.

Oh, they did not come to invade, but they might as well have -- they came to tax.

He could hear his father's voice even from outside the roundhouse.

"That is outrageous!" his father was saying. "That is twice as much as you asked for last year!"

Esca made to step inside, but found suddenly that his path was barred, a spear shoved in front of the doorway, and he looked up to see who had done it. The soldier's eyes met his, and the man sneered.

He was not so much taller than Esca -- or rather, he would not have been, had the boots and the high feathered crest of his helmet not given him more height -- but his stare was an intimidation nonetheless, lazy and contemptuous. Did he think that he was better than Esca because he had fine shining armor and Esca did not? Likely he was some poor peasant's son!

"Away from the tax-men, boy," the soldier said, in awkward British so thick with a strange accent that Esca could hardly make out the words. "We have business with the chieftain." And he chuckled a little and met the eyes of the man next to him. "Stupid barbarian child," he added, in Latin. Did he think Esca did not understand Latin? They were not in the wilds of Caledonia, after all; they were five miles out from Isurium!

"I am no child," Esca snapped back in the same language, clenching his fists and feeling the anger rise in him. "I am the chieftain's own firstborn son, and I will lead the clan after him. I have every right."

The soldier shrugged. "If he'd wanted you in there, boy, he'd have called you. Best stay out here. Go back to your toys."

He was suddenly aware, down the bond, of his soulmate's concern and dismay. Focused on him. He had felt that, from so far away. He was worrying about Esca.

"We do not have the coin for that," came his father's voice, in response to the indistinct words of the tax-collector inside. "Not now. Unless you want your tax in horseflesh, you'll wait until we take our string to the summer fairs."

There seemed to be a noise of agreement.

Esca unclenched his hands and took a breath. He could not stand up to the Romans, not like this, even though it galled him to bear the insult. A burst of warm reassurance came to him, and he relaxed further, little by little. His soulmate would not want him to come to harm.

He forced a smile at the man. "I suppose you are right--" he looked at the man's crest again-- "centurion. But when I am chieftain, do not think I will have forgotten this."

The soldier's smile in return was thin. Condescending. "As you say."

Esca turned and stalked off, hearing the soldiers laugh behind him. Romans. They were all the same.

* * *

In the evening, he found his father with the herds, stroking the nose of his favorite mare, Awena. She was a sleek chestnut with a starred forehead, so graceful that even a man who knew nothing of horses would know her to be the best in the herd. Cunoval had always said she was descended from the stables of Cartimandua herself, and Esca could believe it.

"So," his father said, not looking at Esca. "We will have to bring many horses to the fairs soon if we want to have any hope of paying what the Romans say we owe them, for the privilege of living on our own land." His voice was dry and mocking. "Many horses. Even the finest ones, even the good breeding stock."

Esca was silent.

"If we sold Awena, that would bring us enough coin," continued Cunoval. "Manduorix of the Parisi has been asking to buy her for years. He would be very generous, for this one. We would not need to worry about the Roman tax-men for this year, perhaps even next year, if we sold her with the others."

"Will you sell her, then, Father?"

His father's hand made a fist in the mare's mane. "No."

* * *

Since he was a man now, Esca was allowed to accompany the other men to the horse fairs in the south. It was not that everyone went, of course, but it was the first year he had been permitted to come. His father sat him down, the night before they left, and gave him a stern lecture on how his behavior reflected on the clan now more than ever, now that he was a man, but all Esca could think was _my soulmate lives in the south_.

What sort of man would he be? He was a kind man; that Esca knew already, for his soulmate was quick with comfort and care. Even when he himself would never have asked aloud for such a thing, it always gladdened him to know that his soulmate cared so; he heard that that was not always true for some, whose mates were cruel, either maliciously or unthinkingly so. But not his. 

But what else was true of him? He was probably tall, of course. Most men were taller than Esca. And of course he was handsome, for one's soulmate was always the most beautiful person there was. Esca wished he knew if the man would be handsome to others as well. Perhaps he was a fine warrior; there was a sort of fire in him, a steady determination that Esca always felt in the back of his mind. But why was he sad so often? Would he be sad to live among the Brigantes? He was likely not a chieftain's son in his own clan, so he would be the one to come to Esca; perhaps he would miss his kin. And what if he were jealous in his love, and did not like that one day Esca would have to get a woman with child that he might have an heir himself? What if--

"So it is important," said his father, once again, "that when we are among others, be they Romans or men of the tribes, that you -- Esca, are you listening to me?"

Esca looked up. "Yes," he said, quickly. "Yes, Father, of course."

"You aren't." But his father's face softened into a smile. "I know how I was at your age; you are thinking of your soulmate. I know he is in the south, you have said, but you should not put all your hopes into this trip. You are young yet, and it may be that you will not find him for a while."

"But, while we are traveling, I may look?"

His father smiled. "Yes, certainly. We are to go all the way to Dubris on the Roman road, and if he lives on it you may find him. If not, you will at least know whether you should look west or east when you are older."

Impulsively, Esca flung his arms about his father, the way he had not done since he was a child, and his father laughed.

* * *

They did not find Esca's soulmate on the way. 

It was a long trip south, down from Isurium to Eburacum, Lindum, Venonis, and all the towns in between. Esca held lead-ropes, watched crowds, learned from the older men how to bargain fiercely. The wide roads were strange, the new cities stranger still; the further south they went, the more Roman the faces became. They did not sell as many horses as Esca thought they might have. Most went to other Britons, smiling men with ink across their bodies; it was these men, the chieftains or their children, that Cunoval would take aside quietly, after the sale. Amid the clinking of coins Esca thought he heard whispers, but he could not say what his father was telling them. Who was to say this was not a thing his father did each year on these trips? Surely his father would tell him of it, if there was need.

They had come nearly halfway in their journey, Esca thought, on their last night in Venonis, and yet he felt no closer to his soulmate; it was as if he were just as far away from here as he had been from Isurium. It did not make any sense. He was sure south was the right direction.

After Venonis came Verulamium, Londinium, and then finally they were in Durovernum, a day's ride from Dubris and the coast. They had sold a good amount of the herd now, but Esca had no care for it; he only minded that there was one town left, and he still felt no nearer. His soulmate had to be in Dubris. He had to be. Was there something wrong with the bond, that Esca could not tell how close he was?

_Where are you?_ he thought, into the night, but there was only the slow hum of his soulmate's sleeping mind. _You must be here. Tell me you are here. I am here for you._

* * *

In the town of Dubris there was nothing.

As soon as they reached the town, Esca begged off as many duties as he could, and then he was running, running south, through the streets, pushing everyone aside, until the crowd thinned, the stones under his feet disappeared, and he was sprinting across the high green grasses, and then-- 

There was nothing in front of him except water. The land had dropped away, and before him lay pale cliffs, dropping down into the sea. The end of the earth.

_South_ , his soulbond called, an impatient, restless urge, tugging him forward, and it was only knowing that there was a cliff there that kept him back. There was nowhere further to go.

His soulmate was not in Britannia.

No.

Esca sat down hard in the grass, his stomach roiling as if he were about to be sick. He couldn't think of what this meant. It didn't make sense. South was Rome. South was the Empire. The other half of his soul, the one whom the gods had bound to him -- such a man could not be a Roman! His soulmate was kind, caring, generous, nothing like the officious soldiers or shifty untrustworthy traders. They looked at him and saw only a barbarian; he had heard the soldiers in a tavern in Lindum mocking his voice, his clothes, the ink on his arm.

It was not right. It must have been a mistake. He was a chieftain's son; he would command five hundred warriors. The gods could not have bound him to a Roman. His soulmate would be the one who was right for him, the one who understood him. This could never be right. Never. He had met Romans. A Roman would look at him and understand nothing. Romans inked only their slaves. A Roman would never be proud to be bonded to him.

The bond flared to life, then, a sudden rush of concern in his mind, a sort of protective anger. If there were words, they would have been _I will fight whoever is hurting you_. Esca's stomach twisted again, sickeningly, and he shoved the bond away from him as hard as he could. He could feel his soulmate's pain, a shock of confusion and sorrow at the response. He didn't care.

Esca folded in on himself, shaking, his head buried in his arms. He could not cry.

After a while there was a rustling in the grass behind him, and Esca lifted his head and turned to see that his father had followed him.

Esca did not need to say anything; whatever he would have said must have been visible on his face, and his father paled to look at him.

"Oh, Esca," his father said, softly, after a few moments. "My son, it may not be as you fear. There is hope still."

The only sound that would come out of him was an awful, wracking laugh, and he stood and spread his arms wide. "Tell me, Father, what does this look like?"

"He need not be Roman," returned his father. "South is Gaul as well as Rome, after all. We have distant kin in Gaul, and they are honorable people. Why, you never met her, but my uncle's soulmate was Gaulish, a fine woman. The Romans had brought her to this land as a slave, but she slipped free of their chains and came to find him."

Gaul. It was still too close. Esca shook his head. "He is even further than that, Father."

His father put an awkward hand on his shoulder. "Even if he is in Roman lands, it does not mean he is Roman. Rome claims many lands, but it does not claim all the people in them. After all, Rome would wager that we live in their province, but it is not that we are Roman, eh?" The hand on his shoulder tightened. "It is they who have taken our lands. It might be so with your soulmate. Perhaps he is not Roman, only a... what do they call it? A _peregrinus_." He spat out the Latin word as if it had been poison on his tongue.

"But what if he is Roman?" Esca tilted his head back to look his father in the eye. "If he is Roman, what do I do? What can I do?"

His father looked away and said nothing.

* * *

He could not think about it. He could not let himself think about it. If he thought about it, it would become true. The return north, a fortnight's journey, was all gray bleakness and terror. He could not let this be true.

It was the first thing everyone wanted to know, of course, when they had come home and turned the remaining herd out to pasture. Everyone in the great roundhouse looked at him as he walked in.

"Esca," his mother said, turning to him and smiling, "did you find--?"

He shook his head. "My soulmate is further south."

"Further south than Dubris?"

He nodded, miserably, and the room went quiet at that.

None of his kin dared say anything. It was thus, then, that the man who spoke was not kin. He was a slender young man who had walked out of the huts to help them with the horses; he had called himself Netos of the Atrebates. He was here making a similar journey to Esca's, but in reverse, for he had said he thought his soulmate was in the north, and he was passing through Brigantes lands in search of her. Of course anyone would give shelter to someone on such a quest, but Esca did not like the very look of this man.

Netos stared at him. "Your soulmate is a Roman," he said, and when he said it was taunting, shaming him. No one else had given voice to the words. Not like that. He had said it. Now it could not be denied, not as he could have denied it before. Now it existed.

There was absolute silence then, astonishment on the faces of the people gathered here. His father was grave, disapproving. By all the gods, his _father_. No. Esca felt anger rise in him, hot and choking, pounding through his veins.

"He is not!" said Esca fiercely, but he knew it was only because he wanted it to be true. "He is not Roman! My soulmate could never be such a vile thing!" Everything else he would have said was drowned, his throat closed off in fright and shame. His vision blurred before him, warped by something that might have been tears. He would not cry, he would not.

He had to leave. He had to be alone.

He turned and ran toward the doorway.

"Esca, wait--" someone called after him, but he did not look back.

Down the bond came a tentative, questioning sort of feeling. His soulmate was wondering if he was well. Esca lashed back, hard, and kept running, thinking only of the ground beneath his feet, not that idiot Netos, not his clan, not his father, and especially not the man whose thoughts lay in the back of his head, coiled and miserable.

He had it in mind that he would run far, but when he had just reached the little stream on the near side of the pastures, his strength gave out on him all at once and he stopped, panting, to stare out at the hills.

There came footsteps behind him, eventually, and Esca turned, surprised. He had thought it might be his father or his mother, or even Netos come to apologize. He had not expected it to be his aunt Senna. Senna was the soulmate of Cingetissa, Esca's father's sister. He knew both his aunts had always cared for him very much, but if Senna was here to offer him more words of consolation, or of sorrow at his fate, he did not think he could bear it. This was awful enough without having to talk about it.

For a while Senna said nothing; she only pushed a strand of pale hair back behind her ear and pulled her cloak tightly about herself.

"You know I was not born into the Brigantes," said Senna, at last, very softly.

Esca nodded, for of course he knew that, but he knew it only in the way one knows a thing that has been told. Senna had lived here with Cingetissa since before Esca had been born; even though he knew she had grown up among the Carvetii, he had only known her as his aunt.

"I know."

"And it is not the case," she continued, "that the Carvetii and the Brigantes have always been cordial with each other. You are too young to remember, Esca, but twenty years ago it was bitter between us. My clan was displeased when they learned Cingetissa was Brigantes; for the Brigantes' part, your grandfather, when he was chieftain, nearly cast her out when she would not give me up."

Esca shut his eyes then; he knew what she meant to tell him. "That is different."

No doubt the feud between the two peoples, though it had run deep, had begun over something insignificant; no doubt it had been young men stealing cattle, back and forth, until no one could remember it having been otherwise. But they did not enslave each other, take their land, murder entire clans.

"Why?"

"It _is_." He clenched his fist in frustration. "The Carvetii are _people_. The Romans are-- they are--"

There was a touch on his arm and he opened his eyes to find that his aunt had stepped closer and was staring down at him with a fierce look on her face.

"They are people as well, though do not tell your father I said that," she said, even more quietly. "I have heard you speak of your soulmate this past year, and I have seen how happy you have been. He is still the same man the gods chose for you, even if he is Roman. He is still half of your soul. Is he not kind to you? Is he not caring?"

_He is all those things_ , Esca almost wanted to say, for he could remember how wonderful it had felt, from the very beginning, how it felt as though his soulmate loved him more than anything, asking nothing in return, and how alone his soulmate seemed, waiting for him. But then he remembered the Roman soldiers staring, whispering, laughing at him, calling him a barbarian, and everything went cold within him. 

"Not if he is a Roman."

Senna sighed. Her eyes were wide and too wet, and Esca thought she might cry for him. "Oh, Esca."

"I will cast him aside," said Esca, and his voice was trembling. He was shaking all over. "I will pray for it. If he is Roman, then let the gods sunder us."

It could be done, of course, the sundering; it was a difficult ritual, and only some could manage to petition the gods for it. But after it, if it worked, Esca would be free of him forever, the bond broken.

His aunt's hand tightened on his wrist. "Wait. Please, wait." Now she was pleading, truly. "You are upset, Esca; do not choose these things rashly. Wait at least until you meet him, and decide then." 

"But--"

"You have only one soulmate in your life. Do not throw him away because he is not the one you thought you would have." Her voice caught. "If I had listened to my clan, I never would have come to Cingetissa."

His heart was pounding in his chest as if he'd run miles. He could hardly feel his body, nor hear what his aunt was telling him. It was too much, everything that assailed him, as if his skin were gone and all that was left was raw flesh. He had no defenses.

"I will wait," he said, barely aware of what he was saying, only wanting everything to stop hurting. "But only because it is you who have asked. I do not do this for him."

Senna smiled, but it was a very little smile, in a sad face. "For whatever reason will move you, I am glad. I will hope that you change your mind."

And then she turned away.

Esca watched her leave. When she was gone, there was nothing but the hills and the horses, and no one to see the tears running down his cheeks. He did not reach for the bond.

* * *

He could not have said then that war was to come; it was only afterward that he could think back and see that it had been inevitable, inexorable, like the rising of the tide. They paid the tax that year, barely, and the next year, in Esca's seventeenth year, the Romans came and asked for more. There was nothing left to give, and had there been, the clan would not have given it; he heard his father's voice raised in anger around the fire often enough.

"We must fight for our freedom," said Cunoval, one day, finally. "We owe them no more coin. Romans understand war. If we can drive them off--"

There was a great roar, then, the cheer of the spear-men, the cheer of their armor-bearers, and something twisted unpleasantly within Esca. This was it. This was the end of it.

"--then our land will be ours! We will be a great people, again! And, why, if we fight them -- I have had words with other chieftains, these past few years, and they will join us in our battle!"

There was a greater cheer.

"And if we die, we will die with honor, as free men!"

The feasting that followed was especially raucous, as if everyone knew this would be the last of the merriment, and no one noticed when Esca slipped away to sit alone, in the night.

They could not stand against the Romans. No one could. His father had to know that. But he was right. It was better than letting the Romans bleed them slowly, like prey in a trap. There was nothing else to do.

* * *

The last of the sunlight was gray and hazy. The golden torc had not even sparkled when Esca had put it round his neck; that was how cloudy it was. But it had to be now, his father said. It had to be today. They had divined that much, asking the gods. They would attack on this day, as close to dark as they could, when it was hardest to see; in this manner they could approach the Roman camp and perhaps be difficult to strike. And when the sun went down, well, they would have torches.

So now Esca stood again on the chariot and tried not to think about how it would be the last time. The reins slid through his sweat-slick, trembling hands, and hastily he wrapped the ends of them about his waist. There. He would not get out until he cut himself out.

The chariot creaked under him as his father stepped up behind him; there was barely enough room even with Esca standing forward on the axle. Esca had never driven with a spear-man before. It would be the first time, he thought, and the last too.

"Esca," said his father, "are you afraid?"

Esca's mouth was dry. "No, Father."

He looked back to see his father smile, just a little. "Even a warrior may feel fear. But it is the right thing that we do now. We will go with honor."

Of course it was. But suddenly he thought of his soulmate; the man was still so far away, but likely he would not think well of this. He would not think it wise to battle Rome. No. Esca could not even consider him. It had been wrong. The gods had made a mistake; that was all. His soulmate would find happiness with another, not that it mattered to Esca. Very soon now the bond would break. 

"I know, Father." Esca nodded. "We must attack the Romans."

The smile turned quickly into a frown. "You are not thinking of your accursed Roman soulmate--"

Esca shook his head quickly. "No, Father. Never."

"Good." His father's hand tightened on the spear-shaft. "For the Romans will not think of you kindly. You know what they will do if you hesitate. You know what they will do to our family, if they break through."

"I know."

He did this for the clan, he and his father's five-hundred spear-men. They had to fight; they had to protect the women and the children. Esca's aunts were planning to give themselves to death, to save themselves from the Romans; Esca's mother would have done the same but that she was bonded to Cunoval. Anyone bonded to a warrior had to remain alive as long as possible, lest their death leave their soulmate vulnerable to attack.

His father nodded. "Then drive on."

Esca turned his eyes to the smudged horizon and lifted the reins.

* * *

He awoke face-down in a ditch. His first thought was that he could not be dead, for it hurt too much to be death. There was a line of fire along his ribs when he breathed, and an awful, sickening pounding in the back of his skull, making his stomach lurch with every breath he tried to take. He remembered being hit in the head, he thought. Barely. The ends of the reins cut tightly into his waist, more tightly than they had when he had wrapped them. Someone must have pulled him away from the team. His father. He remembered his father's hands on his arm, dragging him away from the chariot. He remembered his father, raising a spear against the soldiers. His father--

He pushed himself to hands and knees too quickly, and vomited what was left of his last meal into the mud. It did not make his head hurt less.

The battlefield was a wasteland of bodies. At the far edge of the field, the wagons where the women and children had stayed were smoldering, aflame.

They were dead. All of them. Dead. His clan. His family. Esca's gaze grew more frantic, but he saw no sign of movement, for all that it was morning now. Nothing, other than himself.

He could not be the last one. He could not live through this.

He reached for his sword, his dagger -- and found only empty scabbards. The thieving Romans had raided the battlefield. His hand went to his throat and found only scratches and bruises where the torc had been. Of course they had stolen that too; it had been gold. He was no one now. He was not even the chieftain's son, for there was no clan left.

He had no water, his mouth burned with acid, and he was wounded. He knew he was like to die, and he shut his eyes again. Good. He would be with his kin soon.

* * *

"Up!" called a voice in rough Latin. "Hey, Gavius, here's a live one for you!"

A heavy hand grabbed the back of his neck and dragged him upright as though he weighed no more than a feather.

Esca should have run. He should have flung himself on their swords, and put an end to it then and there. But there was no strength in him, and the great waves of grief and shock that crashed over him left him stunned in their wake, stupid and slow. He could not think of what to do until they had already put the chains and fetters on him, until they had already led him to the wagon.

None of the other men were of his clan; they had not been the only ones to rise up, after all. The men looked past him, hollow-eyed. The only man who seemed to take any notice was the man next to him, a warrior twice Esca's age. Through the rips in his tunic Esca thought he saw the spirals of Selgovae ink. The man eyed him in silence and then shifted away as much as he could.

The driver clicked his tongue to the team and the wagon started with a jolt, moving forward in unsteady bounces. Esca thought about vomiting again, but there was nothing more in him to be sick with.

They were dead. They were dead, and he alone had lived.

Hating himself as he did it, Esca reached out for the bond. He had not done this in a long while, but even if it was wrong, even if his soulmate was Roman, at least there was one person left to him--

The bond was gone.

It was not dead, though; not completely dead, at any rate. He could tell that the man at the other end was alive, but all the sensation that had pulsed through it, all the feeling -- that had been extinguished. It was the difference between a man and a crude picture in the shape of a man; it was a view of the sun through heavy fabric. Everything that had once given him joy was simply absent.

Had it happened with the blow to his head? He had heard of that, sometimes, that warriors who had been struck badly in the head had the injury hurt their bonds as well.

Esca put his head down and started to cry, the tears tracking a path through the mud on his face. He hated himself even more for it, that this was what would make him cry. He had not cried for his father, his mother, his aunts, his brothers, all of whom lay dead behind him. But he, the idiot, cried for a man who would have been happy to kill all of them.

"Shh," said a voice, softly, and Esca looked up to see the Selgovae man. "Don't cry."

"My family is dead."

"You are alive," the man said, and his face was kind. "And the Romans will not kill you now, now that they have brought you this far. It is a small comfort, but it is the best we have."

Esca stared at him bleakly. "I wish they had."

The man shook his head and winced in pain at the jostling of the wagon. "You may think that now, but later you will be glad. And who knows, you may be free of them again someday."

"I can't feel my soulmate." He had not meant to speak of it at all, but somehow he was saying all the things he did not intend. Everything was coming out wrong.

The man's eyes softened in a sort of understanding, although of course he did not understand any of it. "Dead in battle?"

"Not dead." Esca shook his head. "Only... not there. I don't understand. But it shouldn't matter. It doesn't." He could feel the tears beginning to come, again. "I don't want to feel him. I don't. He's a Roman." 

When he spat it was mostly blood.

The man winced again, only this time, it was not pain. Esca could see in his eyes that the man pitied him for it, the way everyone had. "My sympathies."

"I hope when I die he is miserable," said Esca, with all the fierceness he could manage. Sometimes soulmates died in their grief for the other. This way he could kill a Roman. He wanted to, he wanted to, he did.

The Selgovae man squinted. "Is he a soldier?"

The question did not make any sense, and at any rate, how was he to know? It had felt like his soulmate might be, though; Esca had thought he had the feeling once that his soulmate was a warrior, and if he were a soldier it would explain why he felt so far away. Perhaps he was posted at some remote Roman fort.

"I have never met him." Esca rubbed his wrists against the cuffs. "He might be, for all I know. Why?"

There came a dry laugh. "How do you think the Romans fight so well? How do you think they overcame us? It is not a matter of skill. They give their soldiers a medicine that dulls the bond, so that they fight with no distractions. If your soulmate has taken it, you'll hardly feel each other. You'll know if he dies, or comes close to it, but other than that you'll barely feel him; he'll have almost nothing from you. He might know if you die, but--" he shrugged-- "I wouldn't know. I've only heard of the stuff."

Esca stared, wide-eyed. There were no words for the utter wrongness of it. How could they cut themselves off from everything that made men alive, that made them human? How could they shed the bond as if it were just an inconvenience? 

"That's... that's awful."

Another shrug. "They're Romans. What do you expect?"

That was what he had in his head. An inhuman monster. The only thing left for him.

He would die first.

* * *

Of course the slavers would not let him. 

When they reached Eburacum he was bandaged and given water and a bit of gruel. The guards indicated with signs and mostly-obscene words that if he made to starve himself they would make sure he ate anyway, much less pleasantly, so Esca sighed and had the whole bowl he was given, and he felt a little better for it.

The night was cold, the blankets were thin, and the chains were rubbing his wrists and ankles raw. If he only shut his eyes, he could almost picture a night at home, sleeping under a pile of furs, his brothers to either side of him, and the fire in the center of the roundhouse keeping everyone warm. He would go to sleep warm, surrounded by whispering voices and the crackle of the flames. But that life, the one that had been his two nights ago, was gone. He had only this.

In the morning they were all brought before the slave-dealer, an officious little man with a board for each of them to hold at auction, and a set of questions whose answers went on the board for the buyers.

"What is your name?" asked the slave-dealer, in very slow, loud Latin, as if he thought Esca stupid.

He considered lying, but his name was all he had now. "Esca."

The man smirked to himself and wrote it down. "Age?"

"Seventeen."

The slave-dealer wrote this down too, and then looked up with an annoyed expression. "Seventeen...?" he repeated, letting the word drift off as if waiting for him to complete a sentence, and then Esca realized what it was he wanted said. _Seventeen, master_. The Novantae captive who had been before him had answered the questions just so.

He would not. He would not bow to Rome.

Esca smiled. "Seventeen, Roman filth."

He had expected the blow that came from the guards behind him, but he had not thought it would be so heavy. Esca sprawled forward, slamming his face against the ground. He was aware of the slave-dealer getting up from his seat, and then there came a firm pressure against Esca's skull, a booted foot settling onto the back of his head, onto his spine. The man was not pushing down yet, not kicking, only resting his foot there, lightly.

If he died now, Cunoval's clan would die with him. 

"Now," said the slave-dealer, in a voice full of smooth politeness, "how old did you say you were?"

Esca shut his eyes. "Seventeen, _domine_." 

_Forgive me._

"That's better." The dealer did not move away; he intended, it seemed, to conduct the rest of the interview in this manner. "I won't bother asking if you know Greek, barbarian. Can you read or write?"

"No, _domine_ ," Esca said to the ground.

"Do you have any skills at all? Singing, dancing? Fighting?"

He had been a decent warrior among the men of the tribe, but never the very best. Besides, if he said he could fight, they would send him to the arena, and there he would die for Roman sport. It was not in his heart to die as amusement.

"No, _domine_."

The slave-dealer sniffed. "You're going to be a cheap one, aren't you?" The pressure on his neck slackened a little, but only a little. "One more question: what of your soulmate?"

He knew from the chatter of the captives that the Romans did not ask this question because they respected a slave's soulbond -- for a slave could be used however his master saw fit -- but because a bonded slave, especially one bound to a man, was cheaper and less desirable. Angry soulmates, whether free or no, had killed their soulmates' masters even when the slaves themselves would not have dared raise a hand. Even without the threat of violence a bonded slave was forever aware of the feelings of another. Distracted. Lazier, the Romans said, and they did not want lazy slaves.

The bond was a haze of nothingness, a figure moving in the shadows. Abandoning him.

"My soulmate is dead, _domine_ ," Esca said, and it did not even feel like a lie.

* * *

No one bought Esca at the first auction, nor the second, nor the third. Though there were no fine bronze mirrors for the slaves, he knew his cheeks had grown hollow, his sides thin; the dealer fed them enough that they might live, and no more besides. He knew when he stood on the auction-block, stripped to the waist, that he looked weak and useless, and none would buy a useless slave.

The fourth time, a voice called out:

"Two hundred sesterces!"

It was an appallingly low price, but Esca was too stunned by the idea that someone had seen him at all to think about how now he was well and truly bought. Owned.

When he met the man, it was worse.

His new master... was British.

"Outrorix," the tall man said, with a cheerful voice, in an accent that might have been Cantiaci. "I'll expect you not to call me that, of course."

"Yes, _domine_ ," Esca said, by rote, still staring, horrified, even though he knew that he ought not to look upon his new master with anything other than submissive deference; the dealer had made that much clear.

He had always known the Cantiaci were hideous Roman-lovers -- _remember your soulmate_ , something said, very quietly, in the back of his mind -- but aiding the Romans was one thing. Buying tribesmen as slaves, in the Roman fashion, was quite another thing entirely. How could he? How could any man do such a thing, knowing that the Romans could turn on him next?

"Heart up, boy," said Outrorix. "It won't be as bad as you think. I know you did not want this, but I will treat you well. Let me tell you how it will be."

He knew the man -- his master -- wanted him to ask, to show interest, but he said nothing as he followed him away.

Outrorix gestured at some of the toga-clad men walking past. "You see, they think I made a bad deal buying you, because they looked at you and saw only how the dealer had starved you, but they do not know the tribes. And I, Outrorix, saw that you were Brigantes. All the Brigantes I have met have been strong and fierce. Is this not so?"

Esca looked away. He did not want to talk about his family. Not to his master, even though his master was British.

"At any rate," continued Outrorix, "I'll feed you, boy. Get you strong again. I'm a trader. I deal mostly in tin, and I find myself needing another hand on the road. Not for long, mind you, just a few trips south and back. I'll sell you when I've no more need of you, but I'm not a cruel man, unless you force me to be. I won't hand you over to the mines. And you may have a skill or two for your next master by the end of it, and a good place. How does that sound?"

_It sounds like you are Roman enough that you may as well forget your own name_. Esca smiled. "As you wish, _domine_."

* * *

He almost wished it had been entirely bad. For though it was true that Esca woke every day knowing he was not a free man, it was also true that Outrorix was a fair master, as these things went. He fed him, as he had said he would, and he taught him a little bit of all of the tasks anyone else's slave would be expected to know, so that he could hold himself the way the Romans liked, so that he knew his letters properly and could at least read his own name or simple writing. It was not enough to be a scribe, but it would help, Outrorix told him.

Outrorix did beat him when Esca refused to learn how to drape a toga. His face was furrowed in regret as he reached for the club. He did not understand why Esca would not have wanted to, and Esca did not have the words to explain that, not in any language.

Esca spent most of the traveling minding the horses. He never said he had been a charioteer, but his master must have known, and Esca was pathetically grateful that he did not ask.

It was bitter, the first time they went to Londinium, and Esca wondered if the men they met on the road remembered him from a year ago, when he had been traveling with his kin. When he had been free. It crossed his mind that he could escape, for Outrorix kept no chains on him, but there were few Brigantes in the south; Esca knew of no one who would shelter him. And his master would certainly not be kind if he ran. 

He thought about his family as he guided the team up and down the roads, day after day after day, plodding onward. There was much time for thinking, and each day he recited the names of his kin who were dead, whom he must live to avenge. There was no one alive for him now. The soulbond stirred occasionally in the back of his mind, and he ignored it. There was nothing good about Romans. And if that meant there was no one for him, so be it. He would be alone. 

It seemed quite sudden, perhaps a year after Outrorix had bought him, that Esca stepped out of the wagons in a field near Londinium to find Outrorix pushing him toward a stranger.

"Here, Esca," said Outrorix. "I've sold you to Ursus." He indicated the dark Roman man standing opposite them, trying to hold his richly-edged toga out of the mud. "He lives outside of Londinium. He needs another stablehand, and I don't need to keep you around any longer. I've told him how well you get on with the horses." Another push. "Go on, then."

Esca went.

* * *

He had thought it was bad that his first master had been British; it was a different sort of wrongness that his second master was Roman. He was exquisitely aware that he was serving the people who had killed his family. Oh, they were not the same people, but they were Roman, and Esca came to see, even from his vantage point in the stables, thankfully far removed from the villa, that they cared little enough for Britons that they might as well have drawn swords themselves.

He was five years in the stables, with naught besides the horses for company, and he told himself he liked it that way. Horses did not think he was a barbarian, nor a worthless slave, and caring for them was not so far from what he had done among his clan that he resented doing it so very much. He started to pick up scars, for the overseer was quick with a whip and did not like the way Esca looked at him.

_I will not cry out_ , he thought, his eyes shut and his back flayed open, on a day when he had slept too long for the master's liking. _I am a man, I am Cunoval's son, and I will bear this. I must._

One morning he awoke and realized he could not call to mind his parents' faces, and he was glad no one else was in the stables to hear him when he sobbed.

* * *

The Ursi were holding a dinner-party. Esca was summoned from the stables to see to the horses of the arriving guests. The first arrivals were a middle-aged husband and wife of senatorial rank, whose light carriage was pulled by a pair of matched bays; he had only to look at the horses to know that these would be the wealthiest guests of the lot.

The horse on the near side tossed his head, warily, and Esca had a hand on the bridle in an instant. It would not do to spook the team and have them all take off across the countryside.

The man of the couple eyed him grumpily as he stepped down from the carriage to where his slave held his hand out for him to balance on. The woman, on the other hand, raised a painted eyebrow and regarded him with an interest that frightened him. Esca did not want to be interesting. Not to Romans.

"Oh!" she cried out as she held out a bangled arm to the slave to help her down. She sounded pleased, the way one coos over a pet who has done some trick. "You are a clever one, aren't you, slave? What is your name?"

Esca hurriedly cast his gaze away. "Esca, _domina_. I serve in Ursus' stables. I am nothing special."

"So modest!" she said, delightedly.

He felt a hand against his face, against his cheek, and it took everything he had not to flinch away.

" _Domina_ ," he said, his voice hoarse, "I am only a slave."

Only a slave. His father would weep if he could hear him.

The woman smiled in a manner he supposed was meant to be pleasing or inviting or some such thing. "Esca, you said? I will remember that name."

He was not particularly surprised, later in the evening, to find that he had been sold.

* * *

His new mistress' name was Fulvia. Her husband Manlius had actually bought Esca, but for all practical purposes he was hers, and they lived in a grand villa in Atrebates lands, somewhere to the north of Calleva. All this was told to him by the two other slaves that the couple had brought, in a manner that was almost pitying, as they waited outside for the party to conclude, eating whatever they could scavenge from the kitchens.

"She likes you," said the taller one, who'd called himself Davus.

The shorter, older one, Clemens -- and Esca knew that neither of them had been born with those names, for they both spoke British like men born to it -- made an agreeing sort of nod and took a bite of bread. "Mmm. That she does. Bought you because she thought you were handsome. May the gods have mercy on you."

Esca looked down at himself, seeing only the scars, his bony wrists, all the places where everything stuck out. Among his people he had never thought he was particularly ugly, but he knew he was not handsome as Romans reckoned it; he had, after all, seen their fine marble statues.

"You think she thinks that?"

"I know she thinks that," said Davus, in a tone of great authority. "It's what she likes to do. It's why she bought Clemens here."

Esca gave Clemens a more appraising look. The man was, he supposed, not unappealing, but he was not a great beauty either.

Clemens saw him looking and laughed. "It doesn't matter what we look like, friend; it only matters that we make her husband angry."

"It's best not to fight it," added Davus. "She likes the chase. The sooner she has you, the sooner she'll be bored and done with you, and the master won't beat you so much when he finds out."

Oh. He had not thought of this. When they told stories about the depravity of the Romans, it had always been stories of their men, their soldiers forcing themselves on women, youths, and even warriors. He had never pictured this.

Esca swallowed. "I've-- my soulmate-- I've never--" _I always wanted to wait for my soulmate_ , he wanted to say, even though it was stupid, because of course he didn't, because his soulmate was a Roman. But he had waited anyway, for nothing, for nothing at all. All the words stuck in his throat.

"It's like that, is it?" Clemens gave him an awkward, companionable pat on the shoulder. "If you truly don't want it, we'll try to help you avoid her."

"Why are you--?" began Esca, but then stopped. He could not figure out how to ask the question without it sounding mean. Why were they being nice to him? He had not had friends, not since the Romans came.

Clemens smiled a little and pushed up the edge of his tunic sleeve to show Novantae ink, edged with a pattern even more familiar. "My soulmate was Brigantes," he said, very quietly. "And in a house like this one, everyone needs a friend. Or several."

Esca smiled back, then stepped away as his new mistress Fulvia came tottering, more than a little drunk, out the door of the villa, calling for someone named Felix. It was strange, for there were only the three of them.

That was when Esca found out he'd been renamed.

* * *

It surprised him, too, that he was a house-slave now, although he could see that this had been done so Fulvia could eye him wantonly while he was, say, sweeping out the atrium. He wondered that she did not just order him to her bed, but he was glad that she had not yet done so. The stares were bad enough.

He liked days in the kitchens best, even though he knew nothing of Roman cooking -- Davus and Clemens had to teach him to put fish-sauce on everything, even if he thought it tasted fine without -- because his mistress did not often intrude in the kitchens, even if the cook hated having his clumsy hands in the way.

"She wants to feel as though she is seducing you," said Davus, after a rare instance when Fulvia had appeared in the kitchens. She had slid a hand up Esca's thigh as she talked to the cook, and then, thankfully, she'd left again. "Don't respond and she might go away."

"I'll stress the _might_ there," Clemens put in, as he stirred the stew. "No one's tried resisting her for long."

Esca rubbed at his leg under the tunic and felt sick. Would it have been like this if his soulmate had ever touched him? Would he have felt used, by so much as a hand on his skin?

For all that he hated the name, it helped that they called him Felix. Felix was another man. Felix was a slave. Felix did as they bade him. Felix learned to make sausages and to lay roof tiles. Felix did not mind when his mistress gazed lustfully at him. Felix could endure this.

"Felix," purred Fulvia, one morning, as she draped herself over a couch in the atrium, "tell me of yourself. I know you are -- what is it, twenty-five? -- but I know nothing else about you. Where in Britannia are you from?"

"Lindum, _domina_ ," Esca said. It was not as though she would ever know the difference.

She smiled. "And you were not born into slavery, were you? I can tell." He knew then that he could not lie to her about that.

He knelt down to brush away dirt from under the other couch and could feel her eyes on him. " _Domina_ , I was born free, as you have said."

"And what did your family do?"

She knew he had been a stable hand. "We raised horses, _domina_ ," he said, and hated himself for having to part with something of the truth in Felix's name.

"Mmm," said she, a thoughtful sound. "And your soulmate? I was told your soulmate was no longer living." She used the word for a woman, and of course Esca did not correct her. There was a great amount of interest, licentiously so, in her tone, but there was nothing that could be done about that.

"She is dead, _domina_ ," said Esca, and somehow it comforted him that his false soulmate -- this man Felix's soulmate -- should be so far from the truth that he went on to say more. "She was a woman of the Iceni people. She fell ill with a fever and died, two years after we came into our bond. I-- I miss her. Very much." He stopped. His voice was shaking, and he did not want to think about why; were not all of these words lies?

Fulvia sat up and patted the couch beside her; Esca sat. "I am sorry to hear that." From her voice she was not sorry in the slightest. "Tell me, Felix: was your soulmate beautiful?"

He knew what men always said of their soulmates. "She was."

Fulvia fluttered her eyelashes. "Did you find her more beautiful than me?"

He went cold all over, a horrible prickling of his skin. Everything about this was wrong. _My soulmate loves me_ , he thought, and he did not know where the thought had come from, but he knew it to be the absolute truth. _He has always loved me. With him it would not be like this._

Esca lifted his chin. "My soulmate will forever be the most beautiful person in the world."

His mistress slapped him, hard, in the face.

His ears were ringing, and he put his fingers to his mouth. They came away bloody where one of Fulvia's rings had split his lip.

She was already picking herself up. "Think on your answer, slave," she snapped, and Esca welcomed the disdain in her eyes. "I will not be so kind, next time."

As he sat on the couch, alone in the atrium, he felt his bond, still muted, begin to move. It had not done that, not in ten years, not ever.

His soulmate was coming north.

Esca shut his eyes. _Please_ , he thought. _Come find me._

He did not know if his soulmate heard him.

* * *

As Fulvia's predations became harder to avoid over the next month, the only thought that sustained Esca was the knowledge that his soulmate was moving ever closer. He did not care that the other man was Roman, not anymore, and he realized this was what his aunt had been trying to tell him, when he had been too young to listen. If his soulmate had not been stupid like he was, he would still accept him. He was all Esca had. And if he were a soldier, why, it could be that he had enough money to free Esca. If he wanted to.

It was right. It had to be right. He had to be the right one. He was the one the gods had chosen for Esca, after all; who was Esca to say he knew better than the gods? His soulmate was the only hope that remained.

One day he was close, so close. The flickering bond made it hard to tell, but Esca thought it might have been as close as Calleva. Esca was ready to run that night. It was only that he could not make it to Calleva unseen that stopped him. 

The next morning his soulmate had moved on. Westward. Well, he was likely still a soldier, and there were forts to the west. Esca had heard the drugs were stronger for the one taking them. Perhaps his soulmate did not even know he had passed him.

Perhaps he would come back.

Let him come back.

* * *

Esca was cleaning the atrium with Davus, one of Manlius' vases balanced in his hands, when someone stabbed him in the leg. That was his first thought. The vase fell from his grasp and shattered, noisily, shards of pottery gone flying as Esca too dropped to the floor, his hands going to his thigh-- the wound on his thigh--

There was nothing. There was nothing there, no wound at all, and at the same time, he was going to die from the pain.

"Esca?"

He looked up helplessly, meeting Davus' concerned gaze, but he could not open his mouth to speak, because if he did he would scream, and the entire house would come running.

He hissed through his teeth.

Davus stared at him, confused. "What's wrong with your leg?"

"Not me," rasped Esca. "My soulmate. He's-- he must be wounded."

He had not known that was the answer until he said it, but knowing that was almost worse than the pain itself. He remembered what he had been told, years ago, that he would still know if his soulmate was about to die, and he certainly felt this. Was this it? Was this the end?

"I thought you didn't have--" began Davus, but then he stopped. "Can you stand up?"

Shaking, Esca tried to shift his legs, but he could not even make it so far as to get his feet under him.

Davus left him for a moment and came back with Clemens, and the two of him together lifted him and carried him to his pallet in the slaves' quarters. He curled up on the thin mattress and whimpered.

"Breathe in," said Clemens, softly, reaching forward to brush the hair back from his forehead. "Breathe out. Think of yourself, not the other. Do not let the bond swallow you whole, not now. I know they must have taught you how to resist that, when you were made a man, eh, Esca?"

Esca smiled weakly. "Not my name now. Haven't you heard?"

Clemens snorted. "And I am not Tasgos, son of Pellarix either, any more than you are not the son of Cunoval. Let us be honest for once."

He had never told them of his father. "How--?"

"You look very like him," said Clemens. Tasgos. "And a man who commanded five hundred warriors is not easily forgotten. I think you had just been born, when I met him. He was so proud he had a son, do you know? So proud of you."

Esca tried to laugh; his breath came out of him in a gasp. "He was less proud that his firstborn son should have a Roman soldier for a soulmate." He laughed again, and now it was more of a wheeze. "I never met him. Never even met my soulmate, and now he's dying."

"He might not be." A hand squeezed his in reassurance. "The army surgeons are skilled; it may be that they can save him. If you can let him know he is not alone--"

"I do not even know if he hears me," said Esca, bitterly, but he thought it as hard as he could.

Davus ran back in; Esca had not even noticed that he was gone. "Eutychus' soulmate is a slave of one of the soldiers at the Calleva garrison," he said, all in one breath, so that Esca could barely make out the name of Manlius' secretary. "Eutychus said that, if you need it, he can ask him to steal some of their medicine for you, the one that dulls the bond. Then you will be able to walk--"

"No." Esca shook his head violently. If they both took the medicine, he and his soulmate, likely they would be able to feel nothing of each other. "If I don't feel him, I won't _know_."

"You would still know if he died."

Even the pain, as awful as it was, was better than nothingness. At least let him feel something.

"I can't."

Davus frowned. "Fulvia's not going to like this."

"I can deal with that."

* * *

Fulvia waited two days to talk to him. The only reason that Esca was able to stand upright at all to face her was that his soulmate was, he thought, unconscious. His soulmate was spending many hours asleep, but he was not sending as much of his pain down the bond; the army surgeons must have been thoroughly dosing him with something. But he was alive. They were still alive. They had that much. That, and nothing else.

"Felix," she began, and her face was cold, "I have been informed that you broke an expensive vase, the other day."

Esca stared evenly ahead. "I did, _domina_."

"Would you care to explain why?"

"I fell, _domina_."

She rounded on him. "Is it not true that you were responding to an injury given to your soulmate? Is it not also true that you personally assured me that your soulmate had died?"

Esca looked up, met her eyes, and smiled. "I lied."

It had been sweet to say that, but he was not sure it was worth the bruises. The only consolation, thought Esca, afterward, was that his soulmate was unable to feel the beating. At least he knew these wounds were his.

* * *

A few days later, they were to hold a dinner-party, and it was a sign of Fulvia's ire that she insisted Esca serve at it, even with the bruises and the very slight limp that was not his. It was at least better than her advances.

The guests who filed into the atrium, chatting and laughing, were a mix of Roman and British -- businessmen and traders, mostly, come from Calleva, or so he gathered. One of the men looked familiar, and Esca could not place where he had seen his face. He was young -- only a little older than Esca himself -- and British to judge by his coloring, but he was clean-shaven and his hair was cropped in the Roman style. The man kept looking at him, sidelong, when the other guests did not see him looking; obviously he did not want to be seen paying attention to a slave. None of the glances were particularly nice.

When the meal was announced, the other guests moved to the dining-room, but the young man stayed behind.

"I know you," he said, finally. His voice was an unpleasant sort of sneer. "You were Brigantes. The one whose soulmate was a Roman."

Esca remembered him all at once, a great rush of memory. "And you are Netos of the Atrebates." The youth who had taunted him for it.

Netos inclined his head. "You were Cunoval's son, weren't you?" He chuckled a little. "And now you're a Roman slave."

He felt all of his muscles tense into readiness, the way he had felt, long ago, on a battlefield. "I do not stop being his son, or a man of the Brigantes, because he is dead."

"Still." Netos chuckled again. "I had not thought to see you alive again. I thought that certainly you would have been honorable enough to give yourself a noble death, but I see that I was wrong, for here you are serving them. I should have expected that a man whose soulmate was Roman would be as cowardly as they."

"You take their money easily enough," said Esca, through gritted teeth.

Netos spread his arms wide, expansively. "Gold is gold. And I only do business with them. You're the one with a Roman soulmate. How is it, eh, sucking Roman cock?"

Esca threw the nearest plate at Netos' head.

* * *

His master stared at him. "You attacked a dinner guest, Felix. I don't suppose you want to explain yourself?"

Esca stared back at Manlius, as well as he could manage with the eye that was already swelling up. He said nothing.

"I won't tolerate fighting," said Manlius. "I'll not have you here. If you want to fight that badly, the arena-master in Calleva is always in need of warm bodies." He regarded Esca sternly. "I don't think you even understand what you've done to yourself, but Beppo will be glad to have you."

* * *

Beppo was a huge fat man, who stared at him the way Esca had seen buyers stare at horses they thought they were being cheated on. "He's a little one," Beppo said, thoughtfully, at last, "but he's got spirit in him. The crowd will like watching that."

And so Esca became a gladiator.

It was five days before Esca realized what they intended for him. He had always heard the stories of how the best gladiators could fight well, could win their freedom, and he took comfort in the idea that he might be a free man as well, through his own victories. He could fight. He could win.

Then he noticed that they had made no moves to train him. All the other men were sent into the training grounds day after day, to swing at each other with wooden swords, to practice swirling nets or thrusting tridents. The arena-master kept him in the barracks, or had him sit and watch the others. And if he was not to be trained, that could signify only one thing. He was not meant to live.

That night he lay in the darkness of the barracks. Sleep eluded him. He could think only of his fate.

"I am going to die."

These words he spoke softly into the stillness of the night. He did not expect anyone to have heard, or care to say anything in reply if they had, but the man in the bed opposite him, a blond man unimaginatively named Flavus, gave a sad sort of laugh. "You've noticed that, eh?"

"How long do I have?"

Flavus sighed. "The magistrate likes to pay for a death-fight for Saturnalia. I'd guess that you're it."

Two months.

Well, he told himself, it was more than many men had. And perhaps it was better to know now when his life would end, to have a firm date, to be able to make farewells. Everyone he would have wanted to bid farewell to was dead already, he thought, except the one man who would never know, who would not know until he died.

He reached out for the bond and found it was still hazy and blunted. He could hardly feel anything from it, but -- he frowned and stretched out -- it felt closer, somehow. His soulmate was here. Nearby. In Calleva. When had that happened? If the bond were only stronger, he could tell where, he could pick a direction. All he knew was that his soulmate was close, closer than he had been.

_I am here_ , he thought. _I don't know where you are. I can't find you. Help me. Please._

* * *

He could not say what he did for the two months that were allotted him; he wished he could have said he strove to remember every moment, to be at peace with it, but most of it passed in a terrified haze of denial. He dreamed of his soulmate stepping onto the training-grounds, here to buy him, to save him. Sometimes in the dream it was his father. Sometimes it was Fulvia, and he went anyway.

He thought about running, but he did not know where his soulmate was, or if he would have welcomed him as a fugitive. The slave-catchers would have likely found him first.

By December he thought he had peace, of a sort. He would give himself to death, as he should have done seven years ago. It would not be the show the Romans were expecting, where he begged pathetically for his life and was killed anyway, as he cried out for mercy. That was not how he wanted to die. Beppo would likely send him out against Magnus, a huge Gaul who was more than capable of finishing him off in a few blows. He would throw down his weapons. He would not resist. It would be quick, and he would die in a way of his own choosing.

The day before the first day of Saturnalia, Beppo summoned him. "You'll be in the games tomorrow, against Magnus," he said, briskly, as if Esca had known this all along, as if he had been prepared like the rest of the men. "Sword and buckler. Fight well."

Esca nodded. "I understand."

He would go west of the sunset. He would see his family again. He only wished he could have looked upon his soulmate's face, in this life.

Then it occurred to him that he could leave a message.

He took Flavus aside in the evening. He had not become friends with Flavus, not precisely, but Flavus was the man who had been honest about his death. It meant there was a sort of trust between them. He hoped it would be enough.

"You know I am to die tomorrow."

Flavus looked at him with wide eyes. "I know."

"There is a favor I would ask of you. After I am dead."

"Tell me of it," said Flavus, "and I will do what I can."

Good. "I have never met my soulmate," began Esca, "but I think that, after I-- afterwards, he will come looking for the places where I have been, after the bond will have broken." If he survived. The bond had been so strong without the drugs, so strong that the grief might take him. The Roman medicine would afford him some protection. It had to. Esca swallowed. He could not think of how it might be otherwise. It could not be that he would kill his soulmate with his own death. "There cannot be so many deaths in Calleva tomorrow that he will never hear of mine. Not if he will ask after men who will have died at the sixth hour."

Flavus nodded gravely. "How will I know him?"

"He will be a Roman." It was strange how the words he hated so much ten years ago fell so easily from his lips now. His soulmate was nothing to be ashamed of. He was past shame, but it would do him no good. It was too late for that. "I do not think he is too much older than I am. Likely he will be a soldier, or have been one. And he will have a limp, from a wound on his leg. Right here." Esca made a fist and drove it against his thigh, at the very spot that still pained him when he focused on the bond.

Another nod. "What would you have me say to him?"

"Tell him about me. Tell him who I was." 

Flavus looked at him evenly. "I will, though you must tell me first, so I know what to say."

Esca held out his hands, in a sort of supplication. He knew it was a mad request, for Flavus knew very little of him to be able to tell. He had been thinking about it for hours, what he should say, what message he should pass on. He opened his mouth to tell Flavus who he was. 

_Tell him my name was Esca_ , he would say. _Tell him I was a son of the Brigantes, Cunoval's son, the last of his clan._

But he knew, as he made to say the words, that it was not right. Those were not the words his soulmate needed to hear. That was not what mattered.

"Tell him I loved him." The words scraped his throat, raw and bitter and lonely. "All of him, everything he is. I love him. Whoever he is, I love him. Whatever he did that he regrets, whatever he had to do, I forgive him. Tell him I want him to find happiness when I am gone."

Flavus stared at him in silence for a long while. Finally, quietly, he said, "He is your soulmate. Surely he knows you love him."

"He will never hear me say it," said Esca, and then he turned away into the darkness.

* * *

The morning of Esca's death dawned clear and bright, a warm day for all that it was the end of December. He woke and dressed and ate and did every other normal thing as if he were not about to die at the sixth hour. There was a great calm in him now. It would be over soon.

He would feel nothing, he knew, but some strange impulse made him reach out to the bond, one last time--

He staggered and nearly fell at the sheer intensity of it. The haze was gone. It was as it had been when the bond had first come upon him, strong and vivid. His memory of it had gone dull over the years; he had thought that the longing had made the idea of the soulbond grow greater in his mind, for surely it could not have been as powerful as he remembered.

It was.

The bond was of strength fourfold, went the rumors children told each other, when they were too young to know such a thing from their own experience. One, that when soulmates were not close by, the bond existed in its weakest form, strengthening with nearness. Two, that upon sight of each other, it grew. Three, that upon touch, it grew. Four, that the bond was at its strongest with the most intimate sort of knowledge, was of course repeated with faces of disgust and the occasional giggle. They had been children, after all.

This was the first level only, and already Esca could feel so much that he wondered how they would ever have handled the rest of it. His soulmate was-- it was a mixture of things. Happy, Esca might have said, or at least hopeful, but there was pain there, and not just the physical wound -- there was sadness and loneliness, grief and sorrow. It was unfair that Esca should have the bond once again, today of all days, but at least he had it back, ever so briefly. _I will miss you_ , he thought, but he did not know if the other understood.

* * *

It was not long before the match now. The staged matches had finished. The animal fights were done. He and Magnus had stripped to their braccae -- Magnus, Esca noted, got to keep his boots -- and Magnus was testing the fit of his helmet, the weight of his sword. Esca was not, of course; they were not stupid enough to hand him anything sharp until the instant before he was on the sands. He was not expecting it to be a fine weapon, at any rate. It did not have to be. It was not as if he would use it.

On the other side of the gate, the crowd was roaring. Magnus pushed the mask of his helmet down and stared, an unmoving face of metal. He said nothing; perhaps it was better this way.

His soulmate was near. 

The knowledge came over him all at once. It was like being able to hear a voice in another room. His soulmate was here, here in Calleva. Somewhere. Right here.

He wanted to find him. He wanted to live.

Esca snapped his head back to check on the guards. There were two of them, and one man holding the gear for him. He could run. They would not expect that. If they caught him, well, he was dead already. But if they didn't, if he ran, right now--

The gate was lifted, and the man next to the guards stepped toward him with a Roman short-sword, presented hilt-first, and a shield. Too late, too late.

Esca stood there, all his plans in disarray, torn between choices.

"Go on, boy," drawled one of the guards, unsheathing a few inches of his own weapon. "Take it or you'll lose the fight before it's begun."

Magnus had already moved into the arena.

He let them press the weapon into his hand, let them push him forward. He would fight. He would not beg, but he would fight for his life. It would be rough, dirty fighting. Nothing mannered, nothing composed, like they wanted to see. But Magnus would not expect that. And he had a bit of an advantage -- with that mask, perhaps Magnus would not see him well.

Win, he thought. Win and live.

* * *

His sword and shield held high, Esca stepped into the center of the arena. The crowd had cheered louder for Magnus, of course -- who wouldn't? -- but there was still a respectable amount of noise made for him, since he was, after all, the entertainment.

Still with his sword raised, he turned so that all the crowd could see him, so that each of these Romans in their fine holiday clothing could have a good view, so that the magistrate who had ordered this would see him, would know whom he had asked to die.

_Look upon me, Romans_ , he thought, defiantly, as so many of their eyes slid over him and yet hardly saw him at all. _I will not give in. I will not plead for my life. You will not have the show you wanted._

Down by the front of the section where the richer men were seated, a Roman shifted position. He wore a fine equestrian's tunic and toga and seemed to be sitting uncomfortably, moving as if he had been injured and could not find a way to sit that pleased him; the pained motion drew Esca's attention. Even so, the man was still looking at him, his eyes fixed on him, and his curious gaze met Esca's. 

Then everything in Esca's mind came alive, the soulbond opening up wide as though a dam had given way. He was falling, falling from a great height, landing in arms that had been held out for him for years. This was it. This was him. Esca's soulmate. The one he had been searching for, and now, finally, he had found him. They had found each other.

His soulmate was staring down at him, incredulous, as though nothing else mattered in the world except him, and he was _happy_. For him. To see him. No one had looked at him like that, ever, as if he were the answer to every question. He could hardly see his soulmate at this distance -- he had a vague impression of height, dark hair, broad shoulders. What the man felt, though, that he knew. A wave of emotion tumbled down the bond: amazement, confusion, disbelief, awe, joy, and an increasing amount of concern.

The bond grew wider, stronger still, and Esca felt a dizzying sort of reorientation. He was the other man. He was himself. He was both of them at once. He was here, on the sands, but he was also the man watching him from high above, sitting in the stands with his wounded leg curled under the bench and still throbbing in pain, ah, his _leg_ \--

He whimpered and tried not to double over from the unexpected stab of agony deep in his thigh; dimly he was aware of his sword and shield both falling from his shaking hands.

That was, of course, the moment Magnus picked to strike. Not with the edge, no; this was the flat of the blade. Magnus was toying with him. The blow went all across his chest, heavy and hard.

He was on his back in the sand, helpless. When he struggled upright, fighting his own pain now as well as his soulmate's, Magnus smashed him with the shield-edge, and the white-hot punch into his ribs was agony. He knew bone had broken.

But he was on his stomach and he could almost reach the hilt of his sword -- and then Magnus kicked him.

He could feel his soulmate's terror in his mind, and he wished the man could help him take the pain, so he could fight, but maybe Romans did not have this training for their soulbonds, or maybe his own pain was too much. Instead his soulmate was pushing fear at him, fear and his own pain and Esca's pain back on him. Esca did not blame him, but it did not help either.

He would not die like this. He would not die on his belly, a coward. He could not die on the sands before the eyes of his soulmate.

So he pushed himself to his feet, sweat and blood in his eyes, to stand once more, until Magnus knocked him down again. The shining length of metal lay at Esca's throat. He would not beg. He would not. All he could watch was his soulmate, who was--

He was rising up, a man who plainly should not have been able to walk alone, throwing himself down the benches, past the other spectators, and as Esca watched, his soulmate's face was white with pain, wet with tears, as he yelled out for life. Anger, he felt. Anger, pain, and a terrified tentative hope.

He could hardly hear the words. He could hardly even see his soulmate. _Please_ , he thought. He had not wanted to beg the crowd, but this-- this was his soulmate, begging for his life. That was a different thing entirely. Esca's life was already his.

"I've found my soulmate," the voice yelled, raw and desperate. "It's him."

Esca took one breath, two, three, and waited for the sword to bite.

Magnus stepped back and threw the sword in the dirt.

He would live. He had been spared.

"I didn't want to kill you anyway." Behind the mask, Magnus started to laugh; oddly, he sounded kind. "Your soulmate?" he asked, quietly.

Esca nodded, though he could not take his eyes off his soulmate, who had sunk down over the edge of the railing, sending equal parts agony and relief. "Mine."

The crowd, not all of whom had heard, was murmuring discontentedly; the magistrate, Esca saw at the edge of his vision, was still frowning.

"Come on," Magnus said. "Show them why I saved you."

He did not take Magnus' meaning at first, but pushed himself to his feet with the last bit of battle-strength in him, and as his soulmate raised his head weakly to smile, Esca understood what Magnus was asking. The crowd needed to know this.

"People of Calleva!" cried Magnus. "I ask for a reprieve for my fellow gladiator, who has only now found his soulmate among you who were watching him fight."

Esca did not know if Romans made the same signs, but there ought to be enough Britons in the crowd to understand. The magistrate himself had looked British. He put two fingers of his right hand on his forehead and traced a line down his bruised face, his throat, his chest. He felt strange, excited and somehow presumptuous, as he stilled his fingers, to let them rest over his heart. This was a thing for soulmates to do to each other at their wedding, for public recognition, and here he was, imitating it for a Roman crowd without even knowing if his soulmate knew what it meant.

Esca held out his other hand to his soulmate. His soulmate ought to understand that, if nothing else.

Much of the crowd was silent. What if-- what if his soulmate did not understand, or worse, did not want--?

The heart-line must not have been a Roman gesture, because his soulmate did not return it. His face was pale but he was smiling, smiling, and then he stretched forth his own hand, as if he could reach Esca from all the way up there. 

He was aware of the crowd cheering from very far away, but the closest thing to him was one man's joy.

* * *

It was only after the guards had told him that Beppo had gone up to sell him, only after he had made his way out to the spectators' gates, that Esca began to have second thoughts. The mass of people swirled around him; some, recognizing him from the fights, moved back so he could be on his way faster. He could tell where his soulmate was, of course, now that they had seen each other, now that the bond had grown. Just around this corner. But suppose Beppo was selling him to someone else? Suppose his soulmate did not have the money, or would sell him on to another? Such things happened in Roman plays all the time.

Then Esca turned the corner. He was not quite sure whether he ought to step closer. Beppo was there, as well as many Romans he did not know -- an old man with several slaves, and, coming closer, the very magistrate who had paid for Esca's death. He hesitated, suddenly aware of how he must look, covered in blood and without even a tunic. They would not think he belonged among them.

The man sitting on a chair in the middle of all the commotion raised his head and smiled. His soulmate. And, oh, he thought it could never have been true, how they said that your soulmate would forever be the most beautiful person you had ever seen -- but they had not been not lying. His soulmate was perhaps the tallest Roman Esca had met, with the build of a soldier, muscled but not grotesquely so, perfectly proportioned. Anyone would find him handsome, Esca thought, with a little bit of pride. He was strong-featured, with dark hair and eyes that Esca thought might be green, or hazel; it was not a face that anyone would forget, a face that looked made for smiles, or for laughter. 

At the moment, though, the man's face was still tense with pain, though he was beginning to be able to block some of it from the bond. Whatever he had done to his leg before, scrambling down the benches at the arena had undone all the healing.

His soulmate. His.

The man stretched out a hand, and his mind was full of welcome, calm, reassurance, as if he thought Esca might run from him.

"I bought you." His soulmate smiled again. The words were breathed out as if he couldn't quite believe them himself. "My name's Marcus, and I'm freeing you, right now."

Marcus. Well. It was a Roman name. He tried it out in his mind. _Marcus_. Yes, that was right. And of course Marcus would free him; he would never have done otherwise. It was beginning to seem unreal. He had woken this morning preparing for his death, and now he found that he was to live, to be free again, and his soulmate was here? It was almost unbelievable.

_I have been waiting for you for ten years_ , he wanted to say, but all the words stuck in his throat. Marcus only smiled once more. Esca thought Marcus understood him anyway.

Then the magistrate approached them, and he stared at the two of them in obvious disapproval. Likely he thought that a beaten, bloodied slave did not deserve a wealthy Roman citizen; after all, he had been willing to watch Esca die. Esca tried not to glare back at him. He had never seen a manumission himself, but he was fairly certain one needed the goodwill of the magistrate.

The other older man, the bearded one who had been here all along, was smiling at the two of them in a very kindly manner indeed, and Esca decided he liked him much better. He was speaking to the magistrate in low tones, and then he turned to Esca. "What's your name?"

"I am called Esca." His name again, he would have his own name.

"Esca, if you can, kneel there, in front of Marcus. Marcus, put your hand on his head. You know what to say?"

Kneeling. If he was to be free, why would he have to kneel on the ground? Was it a trick? It was how he had begun his slavery. But then he understood the rest of the conversation. Marcus had to be able to stand above him, and Esca was not entirely certain that his soulmate could stand. Down the bond came another gentle reassurance, a bit of comfort. Marcus did not think this was a trick.

Esca dropped to his knees, wincing as his knees -- and his chest, and everything else -- protested.

A hand settled upon his head. Marcus' hand. He was touching him, and at his touch the bond opened up again, blossoming, so much more than it had been at sight alone. Everything Marcus felt, all of it, he could feel as if it were his own. Esca could drown in this; he could drink it all his life and never grow sated. Marcus was happy, so happy to have found him, he had been lonely for so long, so many years, and there was a great sadness in him. But there was wonder too, wonder and amazement and a feeling of discovery, delight, _here you are_.

_You are not alone_ , Esca thought, fiercely, and he felt Marcus' joy at that. _I have been waiting for you_. He had been dreaming of this for years and yet it was like none of his imaginings. He would not have traded this for any of his foolish dreams. This was his soulmate. This was how he ought to be.

He knew Marcus was saying words, something about his freedom.

"You're free," Marcus said, and the older man had to tell him to let Esca go; it was clear enough that he did not want to. Esca would have been very happy to stay just so, always touching.

"Thank you." With difficulty, Esca stood. There was more gratitude in him than he had words for, but he knew Marcus could feel that. He was free. He was not Rome's slave. He was a Roman's soulmate, but that was different. That bond was the choice of the gods to make, his choice to keep. Ten years ago he would not have understood that.

Then he realized that Marcus did not like being seated, now, with everyone around him standing. His thoughts were dark, self-pitying, and Esca knew he must be dwelling upon his injury. Esca would have cared for him just as much had he no legs at all, but if Marcus wanted to stand for an instant, he could help him with that.

_Take the pain_. Weles had taught him the idea of it, but it was tricky in practice. And it hurt. Esca hissed as Marcus' wound settled into him, but it was enough for Marcus to be able to rise to his feet, with Esca's arm around him.

"I found you," said Marcus, wonderingly. "I thought I would never find you."

He had thought the same thing. And they had found each other just in time, at the last possible moment.

"I'm here."

Marcus smiled, and Esca could feel him try to shift his weight--

And then Marcus' leg gave out entirely. His face turned a sickly gray-white and he tumbled down, unconscious.

* * *

"I don't understand how, but it's that damned chariot."

An hour or so later, after an uncomfortable litter- and carriage-ride, they were in the villa of the man who had introduced himself as Marcus' uncle Lucius Aquila, the man who was even now casting aspersions on a chariot as they waited for a surgeon. Aquila had called for one, and now he was going on about chariots.

Marcus still had not woken. It was not that he had hit his head in the fall -- Esca had made certain of that -- but Esca thought it might be that the pain had been too great.

"What about chariots?" Esca sat back in the offered chair, adjusted his borrowed tunic, and tried not to wince as his ribs made their complaints known. 

They were sitting here in a well-appointed bedroom, painted with bright murals, the sort of place that six months ago Esca would have been cleaning. Next to them Marcus moved, an uneasy sleep, the wound-sleep that was never restful. He had to be well. He had to. They had come this far.

"He was a centurion," Aquila clarified, and Esca squinted and tried to figure out how a family with so much wealth could have a son who had been in the army at least seven years and yet--

"Only a centurion?"

Aquila sighed. "It's complicated. And I think Marcus would rather you hear it from him. At any rate, he was serving at Isca Dumnoniorum three months ago when they were attacked. To hear Marcus tell it, he took down the charioteer too late, and the chariot fell upon him. His leg was wounded."

He had been a charioteer. He remembered holding the reins in his hands, a sudden sense-memory, exquisitely vivid, and the way the Romans had come up out of the mists-- no. That was the past.

"His leg hasn't ever healed," said Esca, and Aquila gave him a strange look.

"Your bond was that strong even with the silphium?"

Silphium? Was that the name of the awful stuff? Esca nodded. "When it happened, I couldn't walk for two days. And it kept hurting Marcus every day. I don't know what they did, after the battle, but it hasn't been healing. He-- maybe he tried not to tell you that?" He could tell this much, at least. "And at the arena, when he was trying to use his leg as if it were healed, it ripped something open again. It hurts him now as much as it did when he was first wounded."

Aquila swore. Then he rubbed at his eyes and looked up, face set firm and determined. "We will have to hope the surgeon will arrive soon."

* * *

The surgeon, a curt, confident man who gave his name as Galarius, spent more time on Saturnalia greetings than he did examining Marcus' leg. "It was poorly searched," he said, briskly. "Whatever's still in there has moved and is damaging him more. What was he doing, running on it?"

"Jumping," said Esca, and Galarius looked surprised at the interruption. He had probably taken him for a slave. "It was very important at the time," Esca added, dryly.

"Well," said Galarius. "I'll have to open his leg again. I'll need your help, slave."

He had thought him a slave after all. Esca's stomach twisted. Was he carrying himself like a slave? Had he forgotten how to be free?

"Not a slave," said Esca. "His soulmate. As of this morning. Though I don't think I can hold him down for you. I think I broke a few ribs. Also as of this morning."

Galarius stared and then clearly decided not to inquire further. "My apologies." He sounded sincere enough. "I will examine you afterward, if you would like. But if you can find a slave to hold him, that would help. And you can still help."

"How?"

There was a very little smile. "You're his soulmate. Hold his hand."

* * *

After the surgery, which Galarius said had gone well enough, there was nothing to do but wait. Wait, and hope that Marcus would wake.

In the evening, Marcus' skin was hot to the touch, and there was nothing to be done for that either. Either he would fight the fever, or he would not. And Esca would not think about what would happen if he did not. But if this was all the time they had, he was going to stay here, at Marcus' side.

Esca thought he must have missed dinner; he had the memory of a slave handing him some food that he had hardly paid any attention to. When it was almost too dark to see Marcus' face, Marcus' uncle appeared in the doorway again.

"I'll have a room made up for you."

Esca looked at him. "Thank you," he said, "but I was wondering if I could sleep--?"

Here. With Marcus. He wasn't sure how to say it, but luckily the man understood.

"Of course."

Esca nodded. "If you tell me where you keep the mattresses, _d_ \--"

He stopped. This man wasn't his master. No one was.

"I am sorry," he said, helplessly, hating how easily the word had come to his lips. "This morning I was a slave. It is hard, sometimes, to remember."

Aquila nodded awkwardly, but his smile was kind. "You are a free man now, and in this house you are always welcome."

Esca did not sleep well, being woken up by Marcus' panting breath and his twisting amidst his bedding, but he slept far more happily than he had in a long time.

* * *

On the second day, the fever was still raging through Marcus.

Just because he was no longer a slave did not mean he could not care for Marcus, and he helped the slaves change Marcus' sweat-soaked bedding and tunic. He still had all his soldiering muscle, Esca noted, with a certain amount of interest; he was not going to refrain from looking at his soulmate, and besides it would have been difficult to change Marcus' clothes with his eyes shut.

Later in the morning, Marcus' uncle came in to sit with them.

Esca could not help the tension that went all through him, twisting him up like knotted rope. It did not help matters that Aquila looked a little like a friend of Manlius', who had visited his master once, and had-- he would not think about that. At least it had not happened to him.

He knew Aquila saw him shiver, and he hated it.

"I don't suppose telling you you are safe will help you to feel it," said Aquila, after they had watched Marcus in silence for a long while. "Not that it's my business, but I can see you're from the north."

Esca stared at him, confused, then understood. "You know the inking?"

Aquila gave a nod. "And I know that there is not much love for the Romans, especially in the north. I'll wager you didn't hope for a Roman soulmate."

"No," Esca admitted. "But he's the one I have. And I find I am fond of him already."

Marcus' uncle smiled at that. "When I saw that you were Brigantes," said he, "I thought you might leave him, because of who you were. Who he is. Marcus is-- he could use a friend. He could use several friends, actually, but one would be a good start."

He had known Marcus was lonely. Marcus had always been lonely, ever since Esca had first sensed the bond. And he knew now, as he had known at the beginning, that he did not want to leave Marcus alone.

"I cannot promise it will be well. I know there is much that could come between us." Esca cleared his throat. "But, for both our sakes, I will try. I want to try."

Marcus turned his head into the pillow and mumbled something unintelligible.

"You two are not as strange as all that." Aquila smiled. "When I was a younger man, I soldiered north of where the Wall lies now, and it happened that I swore blood-brotherhood with a man of the Selgovae."

Esca's mouth went dry. He had not known these things were possible. "Your soulmate?"

But he shook his head. "No, she had already-- well." He shut his eyes for a moment, but when he opened them he was smiling again. "One of my tent-mates, though, he found that his soulmate was a Selgovae hunter. So you're not the first man of the northern tribes to take up with a Roman."

"What happened to them?"

"We reported Quintus missing. What else could we do? He was happy when we left him. I like to think he still is."

For some strange reason, that thought brought a sort of answering happiness to Esca. "He could be, couldn't he?"

Aquila made to stand up. "He's a good man, my nephew. I hope you'll let him show you that."

"I hope so as well," said Esca, and he meant every word.

* * *

Esca woke in the middle of the night to see Marcus staring at him, his eyes fever-bright. 

Marcus was awake, but likely not very aware, and Esca knew he was a new thing. His presence could be disorienting. Perhaps Marcus was dreaming, perhaps he saw not Esca but some hideous monster--

"You're my soulmate," Marcus rasped, and he sounded as if he doubted his own senses.

Esca smiled, as gently as he could. "I am."

One too-hot hand stretched toward him. "I'm probably dreaming you." The tone was dazed indeed, and the bond was full of longing, a confused and desperate hope. "I must be dreaming. I had this dream the last time I was ill. But stay. Even if I only dreamed you up. Please. Stay with me."

Esca took his soulmate's hand. "I'll stay."

Marcus' lips parted in a smile, and Esca watched as Marcus fell back asleep, still clutching his hand.

He would live now. Esca knew it.

* * *

On the third morning, Marcus' fever broke.

Esca had not slept the rest of the night, having instead sat there still holding Marcus' hand. He was tired, hungry, unshaven, in pain, and he was beginning to be aware that he needed a bath. But he had waited ten years for this. Everything else could wait just a little longer.

Marcus opened his eyes, looked at him, and smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> If I write another story in this series, I swear it will be generally less depressing. I think Marcus and Esca are owed a sweet first-time next.
> 
> The title was borrowed from Warren Zevon's song "Searching for a Heart."


End file.
